Tuesday, November 29, 2005

As I mentioned previously, I read a lot of books while I was on vacation. (Just to name a few: Einstein for Dummies, by Carlos I. Calle, which wasn’t bad; The Chancellor Manuscript, by Robert Ludlum, which was also pretty good; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John le Carré, which was up to le Carré’s usual standard of brilliance; Valhalla Rising, by Clive Cussler, which I thought was crap; The Dark Half, by Stephen King, which I liked.) However, I’m not going to bother posting reviews of all of them, because it’s too much work, and I’m a lazy, lazy man.

However, I just finished another book last night, The Summer that Never Was, by Peter Robinson. It’s a mystery novel, apparently one of a series involving Inspector Alan Banks, one of the main characters in the book. (There is a blurb on the front cover, by Stephen King: “The Alan Banks mystery-suspense novels are, simply put, the best series now on the market.... Try one and tell me I’m wrong.”) I thought the book was great; there are actually two mysteries going on at the same time, and I liked the way Robinson cut back and forth between them.

If you’re into mysteries, I highly recommend this one. The writing is good, the plot is good, and the characters are good. What more could you want?

Here is the thought that ran through my head last week: “Huh. It’s snowing. I guess that means it’s time to throw the umbrella into the trunk, and get the ice scraper out. No need for an umbrella when it’s snow season!”

Here is the thought that ran through my head last night, as I left work: “Huh. It’s pouring rain. Boy, I wish I had an umbrella...”

Incidentally, the title of this post is misleading; it doesn’t actually go into any reasons why I’m dumb. A more accurate title would have been “Further Proof That serna Is Dumb” I should have gone with the alternate title...

Monday, November 28, 2005

Well, the vote of “no-confidence” passed today, which means there will be an election in Canada. They’re saying probably on January the 23rd, but, when I wrote this, it wasn’t official yet.

Which means that I have to bone up on my Canadian politics; although I’ve been reading The Nation lately—and watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, of course—I haven’t been following Canadian politics as I should. I need to research the issues a bit, and especially who will be running in my particular ward. If you’re Canadian, I also urge you to please—please!—research the issues, and make an informed decision! Don’t just say “I’m a conservative, so I’m going to vote Conservative”, or “I’m a liberal so I’m going to vote Liberal”—that way lies madness!

Well, that’s a bit over the top... But consider this article (American, unfortunately): If asked in a survey, 30% of Americans would call themselves “conservatives”, while only 18% would call themselves “liberals”. However, when asked about actual issues—not just “are you a conservative or a liberal”, but “how do you feel about X”, where X is health insurance, or raising the minimum wage, or protecting the environment, or “do you think the troops should come home from Iraq”—an overwhelming majority of Americans respond in a very “liberal” way. Regardless of what they may call themselves, they are actually responding very “liberally” to the issues.

This is especially important for Christians to consider. (I know that most of the people who read my blog are personal friends of mine, meaning that a lot of them are Christians.) It’s very tempting, if you’re a Christian, to just say “well, Christian = conservative”, and vote for a conservative party—whether that’s the Conservatives in Canada, or the Republicans in America. But if you look at the actual issues for which these parties stand—and I mean all of them, not just the ones emphasized when the neocons are talking to church groups—you’ll find that they don’t agree with Christian teachings most of the time. How do you feel about the poor? Well, conservatives aren’t big fans; they’d much prefer that the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. How do you feel about the environment? Well, conservatives would rather loosen environmental laws, because they say that would be good for business, while liberals would prefer to have strong environmental laws, so that people don’t have to live next to un-advertised toxic waste dumps. (I am, of course, very much over-simplifying, to make a point; however, I’m hoping to research the issues more, and post more about them here, and I think you’ll find that it’s true much of the time.)

Unfortunately, when it comes to politics, things aren’t simple. For example, if you’re a Christian, and have really given some thought and analysis to the issues, you probably have certain stances on some things1. For example:

You may be against abortion, which would make you a conservative

You may be in favour of environmental protection, which would make you a liberal

You may be against gay marriage, which would make you a conservative

You may feel that the richer you are, the more taxes you should pay, and the poorer you are, the less taxes, which would make you a liberal—conservatives tend to believe in something called “trickle down economics”, also called “supply-side economics” (this is the current trendy term), also called “voodoo economics”, under which they want to make it so that rich people don’t have to pay taxes, because they feel it would be good for business.

These are a few examples; there are others. The point is, there won’t be a political party which matches your beliefs 100%. So you’re going to have to decide what’s important to you, and what you can let slide.

As a Christian, you may be surprised to find that I take a more “liberal” stance, overall. I’d rather feed the poor, and help the hungry, even if it does mean that gay people can get married. It doesn’t mean that I’m for gay marriage; it just means that I care more about the issue of feeding the poor than I do about whether gay people can get married. There is a good portion of the book What’s So Amazing About Grace, by Philip Yancey, that sort of applies:

When I went to the White House to visit President Clinton, I knew well that his reputation among conservative Christians hinged on two issues: abortion and homosexual rights. I agree fully that these are important moral issues which Christians must address. But when I went through the New Testament I could find very little related to either one. Both practices existed then, in a different and more egregious form. Roman citizens did not rely principally on abortion for birth control. The women bore their babies, then abandoned them by the side of the road for wild animals or vultures. Likewise, Romans and Greeks also practiced a form of same-gender sex: older men commonly used young boys as their sex slaves, in pederasty.

Thus in Jesus’ and Paul’s day both these moral issues asserted themselves in ways that today would be criminal in any civilized country on earth[sic]. No country allows a person to kill a full-term, delivered baby. No country legally permits sex with children. Jesus and Paul doubtless knew of these deplorable practices. And yet Jesus said nothing about either one, and Paul made only a few references to cross-gender sex. Both concentrated not on the pagan kingdom around them but on the alternative kingdom of God.

For this reason, I wonder about the enormous energy being devoted these days to restoring morality to the United States. Are we concentrating more on the kingdom of this world than on the kingdom that is not of this world? The public image of the evangelical church today is practically defined by an emphasis on two issues that Jesus did not even mention. How will we feel if historians of the future look back on the evengelical church of the 1990s and declare, “They fought bravely on the moral fronts of abortion and homosexual rights,” while at the same time reporting that we did little to fulfil the Great Commission, and we did little to spread the aroma of grace in the world?

One more thing to think about, for those of us living in Rexdale: In the last election, in Ward 1 (where I live), 140 people voted. One hundred and forty. People always say that their vote doesn’t count, but when your vote is only one in 140, it counts a lot more!

Anyway, I have a lot more to say on the topic, but I’m hoping to do some research on the actual issues, and post some real information here. I’m going to try not to sway you my way, politically, and just present the issues, and where the different parties stand—but we all know that it will be hard for me to do that, and my views will probably come through. So too bad!

1You may disagree with me on some aspects of this post, by the way. When it comes to politics, things aren’t always as cut and dried as we’d like. There will be some issues where I can take a hard-line stance, and say “if you’re a Christian”, you should believe this, but there are a bunch of other issues where it’s not that simple.

I’ve realized that I’m not always consistent with how I spell my name; sometimes I use a small “s”, as in “serna”, and sometimes I use a big “S”, as in “Serna”. The rule, in my head, is that it should be a small “s”, as in “serna”; any time I write “Serna”, I’m just breaking my own rule.

If I can’t even get my own name right, how will I ever get others’ names right?!?

Don’t be fooled by the number of [useless] posts I’ve put up today; I was actually pretty busy at work. It’s mostly just during the end of the day—when I was waiting for my wife to call, so that I could go home—that I had time to kill for the really useless posts. (I realize that they’re all useless, to one degree or another, but by the end of the day today, I was just getting silly...)

Of course, it really sucks that my wife had to work late tonight. Since I was up so early for work this morning—and since I have to be up late tonight, also for work—I was really hoping to go home early today, so that I could at least get some sleep, before I have to get back up. Oh well; c’est la vie.

Of course, the other reason I was able to post so much is that I’ve customized the heck out of my HTML editor, so I can tear these posts off in no time flat.

The editors of this blog would like to present an interview with the creative “man behind the scenes”, sernaferna. All of the posts on this site are written by serna, and self-edited. Um... yes, technically this does mean I’m talking to myself, for this post—but I’m doing it in blog form, which is different. Also, I’m doing it in the third person, so it doesn’t look as weird.

Question: We understand that you’re a nerd; exactly how much of a nerd are you?Answer: Well, let me give you an example: I have just spent about an hour uploading tiny little images, to Blogger’s image upload tool, to represent a bunch of emoticons I use in MSN Messenger. These aren’t images I would ever use in the blog itself—just for posts where I’m relaying a conversation I had in MSN.

Q:Wow. That is pretty nerdy.A: Yeah, I told you. But I was bored, waiting for my wife to get off work, so that I could go pick her up, and—

Q: No, I mean that’s really nerdy. Like “you should get some help” kind of nerdy.A: Yeah, uh... next question please?

Q: Right, right. So where do you get your ideas, when you’re creating a new bl— I’m sorry, I can’t get over this. An hour?!?A: Uh, yeah, it takes a while to upload them all, and then I had to create a macro in HTML-Kit to insert them into the posts, and—

Q: Sorry, wait... a macro? You created a macro? Uploading the images wasn’t enough, and you had to do some programming, too???A: Look, the images wouldn’t be much use if there wasn’t an easy way to include them in a post, would they? Are we going to talk about anything else?

Q: Well, I... [checking notes] No, not really. All of my questions are about how nerdy it is to spend so much time on images for posts—A: MSN Messenger posts, not regular posts.Q: Yes, MSN Posts. So... I didn’t bring any questions on anything else.A: Okay, interview over.

And that’s all for today. Tune in for future interviews with the “man behind the blog”, sernaferna.

Since I occasionally post conversations that I’ve had in MSN, and got tired of replacing all of the emoticons with textual descriptions of the emoticons, I decided to upload a bunch of emoticons into Blogger, so that I can use them in my posts. For example:

some person says:What are you doing?

sernaferna says:nothing, but I still don't want to talk to you!

some person says:

Of course, I’ll only use emoticons for MSN conversations that I transcribe—I don’t want to start using them in regular posts. It’s just too... I don’t know. Too lazy, to use emoticons in blog entries. (Yes, I realize I probably just insulted all of my friends who have blogs on Spaces...)

Although I tend not to edit posts, once I’ve put them up, this one’s an exception. I’ve modified the links to my photos site.

Probably not that important, but I’m anal-retentive, that way.

I’ve finished making a first pass through the pictures we took in Venezuela, doing whatever cropping or brightness adjustments that needed to be made. (And deleting pictures that were too blurry, or pictures of my feet, or whatever.) Unfortunately, they didn’t come out as well as I’d hoped they would, overall.

When we went to Guyana and Barbados last year, I brought the same camera along, and took almost as many pictures, which came out great. (If you’d like, you can go here and see them, along with any other pictures that I’ve put online for public consumption. There are separate albums for “Guyana” and “Barbados”, and will be soon a third album for “Venezuela”—if it isn’t there already, by the time you go. Actually, because there are so many pictures, I’ve been toying with the idea of making multiple albums, by subject, so we’ll see how the mood takes me...)

So I was expecting similar quality, which, unfortunately, I didn’t get. It just goes to show that you really do need skill to take pictures—you can’t just expect your camera to do all of the work for you, even if it’s a good one.

Further to my post yesterday, in which I mentioned that I was worried about the fact that people can spam comments now, I looked into Blogspot’s Moderate Comments feature, and I’m not worried anymore. If it comes to it, and I start getting a lot of spam, I’ll just turn on that feature.

I just found out that there’s something called Google Video, and I’m tempted to sign up and upload the cartoon I created. (For those of you who don’t know, I created a short cartoon. It’s only about two minutes long, but it’s pretty safe to say that it’s the most brilliant thing anyone has ever created, in the history of the world. Ever.)

But I don’t really know much about this Google Video thing, so I’m hesitant...

I just thought I’d share this with you. This article is ripped off 100% word-for-word from news.com; see the real thing here.

Just when you think you’ve heard of everything, something like this comes along. Breath Capture offers a novel way to show you care: “Capture the breath of a loved one or friend and keep them close. Forever.”

Literally. In a capsule, which can be mounted on a base of solid oak, or worn as a pendant of various designs. And for those unscrupulous individuals who might be tempted to sell a knock-off version, take note of this plainly posted statement: “Breath Capture is a patent-pending method and apparatus for collecting human breath as a keepsake display.”

Thursday, November 24, 2005

On my vacation, I did a lot of reading. I mean a lot of reading. I went through at least half a dozen novels, as well as a book on Einstein’s life and work. (Einstein for Dummies, since I’m an idiot when it comes to physics... But I really want to understand the theory (theories) of Relativity, etc., because I hate feeling stupid.)

Incidentally, I also read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John le Carré, which was great. I say this all the time, but if you’re into spy novels, I recommend this book, or anything else by this guy.

So, partially because I spent so much time reading, and partially because I was so well rested, I really wanted to do some writing. (I had been tempted to bring my laptop with me, just in case I got that urge, but didn’t bother because I didn’t know if Venezuela has the right type of electrical sockets. Of course they did, so I could have, but in retrospect it’s probably better that I didn’t, and just enjoyed my vacation.)

I had hoped to start writing as soon as I got home, but then I ended up spending my two extra days off on my pictures (which still aren’t done), and then I ended up back at work. Suddenly, now that I’m back in the grind, my urge to write has gone down again—when I’m stressed, I have much less of an urge to write, even if it’s just a little bit of stress.

But one thing I did want to work on was my descriptive writing, which, as I’ve mentioned, I don’t normally do. So I wanted to beef up my novel, and add some in. I even had a couple of parts where I thought could use some description—not the least of which is my main character, who isn’t described at all yet.

I gave it a shot last night, and I think I got mixed results. I didn’t even get to the part I wanted to beef up, because right at the beginning I saw an opportunity, and I took it. With a vengeance. Man, did I do some describin’. And I think I went way, way too far... So, at some point, when I can take a step back and read it critically, I’ll have to go over it again, and maybe take some of that description back out.

I don’t normally censor the comments on this blog, but a day or two ago I removed two comments that I’m absolutely sure were spam. (It left a feeling of dread in my stomach, as I assumed I’d be spending the next six months of my life constantly removing spam comments from my blog, but no others have yet shown up.)

So I’m just posting this on the off chance that it wasn’t actually spam, but someone who really thought that I needed to know about a website where I can get MSN Messenger emoticons. And if that’s the case, then I apologize for removing your comments.

I don’t feel so well today, and I’m not really sure why. I’m not even sure what’s wrong—it’s not my stomach, or my head, or anything else I can put my finger on. I just feel weird. I had a good night’s sleep last night, so I shouldn’t be tired. (In fact, I just got back from a vacation that was almost three weeks long, so I really shouldn’t be tired.)

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

I’m at work just waiting to go home, so I thought I’d throw in some random thoughts for y’all.

I just noticed someone on my MSN Messenger list that I don’t recognize; I wonder who it is? I’m sure I’ll remember at some point...

After my 3 week absence, I was too lazy to completely read all of the posts I missed on the blogs that I follow. So I just read the last few posts on each, and I’ll go from this point forward.

In addition, another friend of mine has started a blog—not that the ones I currently follow are written by “friends” of mine—so I guess I need to start reading that every day too... Unless s/he doesn’t post that often, as most people who have blogs do.

Today was my first day back at work, after my vacation, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was gone for [a day less than] 3 working weeks, so I had quite a few emails to read when I got back, but very few of them required attention, which was nice.

I had been planning on doing a whole bunch of posts about Venezuela—what it’s like, particular posts about certain places, a quick post on [Venezuelan] Spanish pronunciation, etc. But I’ve decided that I’m not as interested as I was, so I probably won’t bother. Burn.

On a similar note, I’m well on my way to getting all of the pictures edited, that I took on the trip. I’ll be posting them online as soon as I can. Be warned that there are a lot, so you probably won’t feel like going through the whole set.

We had shark steaks for supper last night, which were quite good. I think I like them better than salmon steaks. But, of course, nowhere near as much as I like beef steak. (That should have gone without saying, but I thought I’d throw it in on the off chance that someone comes to my blog who doesn’t actually know me personally.)

I got a notice from MSN Messenger this morning that there is an updated version available, and would I like to download it? “Sure!” said I. “Let’s go for it, and see what happens!” In fact, I’ve already downloaded it at home, and although I was only using it for a few minutes, it looked like there might be some new features, and/or upgraded functionality.

Unfortunately, the new version disabled a feature that was critical for me to be able to use Messenger at work! I used to be able to set Messenger to use a different proxy server than I set Internet Explorer to use—which I did, because I have to use a proxy for Messenger at work, but not for Explorer. That feature is no longer available—I now have to use the same settings for both. (You have to set it in Explorer, and then Messenger uses the same settings.)

This is supposed to be Rule #1 for application development: Never take away a feature that the product used to have. I’m surprised that they did this.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

I like Norton AntiVirus much better than McAfee. However, there is one thing I hate about it: it really, really wants to scan MSN Messenger. If I tell it not to, it gives me a warning every time I start Windows, and tries to tell me that there is an item which is “affecting my status”.

But, if I turn that feature on, then Norton has a nasty habit of automatically starting Windows Messenger behind the scenes once in a while—and on my computer, when Windows Messenger starts, it automatically signs me in. What’s worse, when Norton automatically opens Windows Messenger, it opens it up running in the background—not even the little icon in the taskbar shows up! So I don’t even know it’s running, but I’m signed in, and people can send me messages.

So, my apologies to Macker and Tara, who sent me messages today, when I was away from my computer, because Messenger told them I was online. I wasn’t ignoring you.

Monday, November 07, 2005

I’m here in Venezuela, and luckily my cousins-in-law have internet access, so here I am writing a quick blog entry. Of course, I haven’t done much for the last couple of days, so there isn’t anything to write about yet—maybe tomorrow.

sernaferna says:Can I post this conversation on my blog? [tongue-out emoticon] There's a good chance I'll be bored this afternoon, because I'm trying not to do work on my last day before vacation. [wink]

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

If you had wanted to email me, today would have been a good day. Whenever I have a lot of time to kill at work, I always find myself checking my email compulsively, over and over, just in case there is a new email for me, that I can read and waste some time on.

What’s that you say? This is the most useless thing I’ve ever posted? Oh come now. I’m sure it’s not the most useless thing... I post useless things here all the time. Surely something I’ve posted in the past must be less useful than this...

I only have a couple of days left at work, and then I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks on vacation, to Venezuela. (Yes, I’m starting my vacation in the middle of the week. It’ll give me a chance to rest up, before leaving on my trip.)

So if you don’t see any posts here for a couple of weeks, that’s why. Either that or I’ve been kidnapped in Venezuela, and they’re holding me hostage. In which case I’ll probably never be posting here again, because nobody I know would have enough money to pay off the kidnappers, and they’d have to just kill me. Which would be sad, because, frankly, I like myself, and I think it would be a pity if I were to die. Oh sure, it’s bound to happen some day—I recognize this. It’s just that I think the world would probably like me to be around for as long as possible.

Tim Horton’s has introduced Flavour Shots, which can be included in their coffee. I thought this was a great idea; they have Butter Caramel, Raspberry, Hazelnut, and Orange. (They also have something called Hot Smoothees, which seem to be along the lines of hot chocolate, but using the same flavours as the flavour shots.)

Unfortunately, I tried the Butter Caramel flavour shot, and didn’t like it. Not only does it give a strange after taste (to me, anyway), but it also makes my coffee breath even worse.

I’d be interested to hear what others think of this. As I said, the idea sounded great to me, and I was really looking forward to the flavour shots—Butter Caramel especially, because it sounded delicious—but I was disappointed with the result.

You know how sometimes you meet someone on the street whom you barely know, but you accidentally make eye contact, and because of that you have to make small talk, but it’s hard because you don’t know anything about them, and you forget their name?

That’s sort of what it’s like to comment on someone’s blog, and wish them a happy anniversary, even though you don’t know them, you just sometimes read their blog.